Acid Shot x3. Force Wave. I aimed at the knife one of the monsters was carrying and destroyed it. The monster collapsed after that. At least they were slow, except that when we got too far they teleported closer and then began their slow approach.
I had to wait for my energy to come back to take out another one permanently. But my protection detail was hard at work, killing the monsters. Or at least doing enough damage, the knife dropped. I had told them not to touch the knives and no one did.
“That seems to be it,” Captain Francis said as the last level 4 monster was barraged heavily and just left a knife behind.
“Use swords and a blanket, to start collecting the knives. We need to destroy them all as quickly as possible,” I said. I did not want these monsters pursuing me. They were robed, chased me, and apparently developed an immunity to what killed them. Cult of Doom sounded about right for their name.
Just one of these unleashed would be a disaster in any city. They would just keep regenerating and coming back, over and over. The knives were incredibly sturdy as well. Only my annihilation attack seemed to be able to destroy them. I guess tossing them into the void might work as well.
What a horrible monster. Cult of Doom really was an appropriate name for them. Level 4 monsters never stopped surprising me. Always something new to pull out and make life a lot more difficult or interesting depending on how you looked at it.
“Yes sir,” Captain Francis said to me and began organizing people. At least we hadn’t lost our carts or any of the soldiers. The monsters were terribly slow when advancing on a person. We slowly back tracked, collecting knives by pushing them onto a blanket held by four soldiers very carefully. The knives were pushed on with a sword.
I had too much curse damage to even entertain the thought of experiencing any more. In the future they could be tested out on a Karen, but for now, it was better to destroy them all and end the threat. At least that was the hope.
I hadn’t noticed any crystals dropping when the knives were destroyed, but I was using an annihilation attack in the location the point crystal would drop. I had thought I saw the energy dispersing, but it was next to impossible to see through the tangled mess of energy that was an annihilation reaction.
We made our way back to the original campsite as all the daggers were carefully collected. I melted a pit in the ground and the daggers, along with the blanket, and the sword used to push them on the blanket were all tossed into the pit. Better to be absolutely safe and get rid of them all.
I was still trying to wrap my head around level 4 monsters chasing me down like this. What if they had been level 5? I shuddered at the thought. The ability to come back and be immune to what killed them the first time was concerning. Well maybe not killed, dispersed seemed like the better term. Would they stake up immunities?
Acid Shot x10. Force Wave. Force Wave. The knives were all destroyed as my protection detail looked on. “That was surprising,” Captain Francis finally said, and I chuckled at that comment. Everyone began to laugh a bit as the stress and fear drained away.
“Never a dull moment out here,” I replied.
“Should we return?” Captain Francis asked and that was a good question. I considered it carefully. If more monsters showed up, it could be a disaster. While I did think we got them all it was better to be safe before a disaster was unleashed. If they showed up again, then we would have to push them into the void, or at least their knives.
After that, I wasn’t sure how we would kill them if they came back again. Perhaps burying the knives would work? Well, I was confident they were dead for sure, since the knives had been destroyed. That should get rid of the monsters since it seemed to be the core part of them.
“We will wait today. Set up camp away from here as well to reduce the variables if they do come back. They might not if we are on top of their death site. Better to find out now. I will rest, and light grinding of the surrounding area. If you see a Cult of Doom monster come back and let the rest of us know. Then we will have to move to a void zone and try getting rid of them that way,” I replied and there were nods at that.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“If they don’t show up, we can leave tomorrow morning. We don’t have a precise timetable, so being a day latter than we originally planned is fine,” I added.
“Understood, alright, let’s move and get camp set up again,” Captain Francis said, and we set off. It was good I learned about this now rather than later. The fact monsters could come back like this while leaving a knife behind or something else.
If that had happened with a level 5, it would be bad. But that was why I was checking out level 4 zones. I wanted to better understand the crazy things the Almighty System could pull out before I actually ran into them and risked dying.
It was a bit cautious, but after this ambush right before dawn, I felt justified. I suspected the monsters had reformed at midnight just like the other monsters respawned, but since they hadn’t been completely killed, they pursued me, since I had taken them out initially.
After that I kept moving and there was a lot of distance to cover as well. If a person could be tricked into killing one, they would be great trackers. Something to consider and look into in terms of stats and manipulating energy directly.
The Astrologer had mentioned it offhand, but it had stuck with me. A lot of knowledge could be gained by observing what monsters could do. This was even more true for level 4 monsters with unique abilities. It was something I was quite interested in as a long-term project.
The ability to alter my skills slightly in the middle of battle. As I rested in the camp, I would focus on my Sense stat and use Acid Shot. I spoke the skill out loud as I sat on my chair at the edge of camp. My protection detail out grinding with a few remaining behind to keep an eye on things and rest.
“Acid Shot.” I carefully observed the skill and tried to change various aspects of it. I could alter some things barely, but there felt like very little wiggle room beyond the upgrades I had chosen. I could reduce the power far more than I could alter the shape of the skill.
“Acid Shot.” I stared carefully as the structure of energy was built in front of me. There was a lattice work, or frame work that near instantly formed as I called on the skill. I was trying to slow things down so I could observe this more, but it was hard.
Kind of like wiggling an ear. It was possible to train oneself to wiggle an ear, but the process needed a bit of assistance at the start, but force the muscles to move with one’s hand and carefully sensing what to do to cause the necessary muscles to wiggle an ear.
That was how this process felt. Manipulating energy was like wiggling an ear. I knew it was possible, but it was forcing me to do something that I had very little ability in. The analogy went further, since wiggling an ear often resulted in lots of facial muscles moving at the same time, to get the necessary ones to move.
Like how moving fingers caused other fingers to move, since the brain linked various muscle groups together. The knowledge the Almighty System gave, linked everything that made the skill together into modules the same way the body did muscles.
I normally just pulled on the Acid Shot mental muscle and the skill triggered. But to break it apart into a smaller grouping was incredibly hard. I could kind of sense the various groups, but it wasn’t very clear. The upgrades just made the modules easily accessible.
As I used other skills, I could sense the difference in how the upgrades, or modules worked. Not all modules were tied to an upgrade either. It was very complicated mentally, which was why the Almighty System probably simplified. Trying to work this out, was mentally draining.
Like staring into a screen for a long time, you would eventually start to get a headache. Just focusing on my skills like this for hours on end, while productive was slow. Just like muscles, I needed to gain a better grasp on the mental triggers I needed to alter skills.
Everything happened so quickly and focusing on certain aspects of a skill, felt like I was trying to grab an ice cube. The skill quickly slipped out of my control and what I could grab melted quickly, giving me very little time to get a better grip.
The Astrologer clearly put in the work to be able to alter skills. But I considered this another aspect of my training and improvement just like being able to move quickly. Being able to adjust my skills would give me a huge advantage. And while it would take considerable time to make it work, I had lots of time. Especially right now when I wasn’t moving about and there was no obvious threat.
I just needed to be sure I kept my energy mostly full, and I was fine. What would be really powerful was if I could adjust skills and not need the upgrade or figure out how to make skills more powerful on my own by putting in more energy into them.
There clearly was a process, since the Almighty System allowed skills to be upgraded to another level. Perhaps I could make my own skills one day, or something similar. Thinking of the Astrologer, he had combined skills there at the end of our fight. Mixing and matching. That was something else that had possibilities.
I felt a shiver of danger run through me. I frowned and looked around. There was nothing. I thought about mixing skills, and I got that same feeling of danger again. Okay, definitely not doing that. It was clearly a warning, which was a bad idea. While not as strong as the Avatar doom feeling, I wasn’t going to ignore an obvious warning.
Other people could do something stupid and die. But I wasn’t about to take any risks poking the God of this place. I wondered why mixing up skills would annoy the Almighty System and why damaging the pillars didn’t give a similar sense of danger. It was just a thought, it was weird it triggered such a reaction in my Perception stat.
Another mystery to add to the pile that had only grown over time.